Chapter 12
The Way In
Feardorcha stood quietly on the bridge of his airship, the vessel was a mixture of different components collected from many different worlds. The ship was considerably thin but quite long and almost looked a bit awkward. The thing had no trouble flying, however, with the combined technologies on board the airship could travel faster than any ship in existence…or at least in any existence the Outcasts had been to. The ship could also camouflage completely to its surroundings making it completely invisible to both the naked eye and any sensor device.
In its normal form when not camouflaged, the ship, which Fear named the Cetra Resurrection, was a dark red colour modeled mostly after an airship he had seen in another world and had particularly liked the look of it. It had been called the Ragnarok. Fear had taken parts from that ship to make the Cetra Resurrection, but parts not nearly as advanced as others he had installed.
As far as weaponry the Resurrection was second to none, it was completely covered with a myriad of hidden weapons including a powerful weapon called an Eelectro Magnetic Pulse gun that could knock all systems of an opposing ship offline. Fear used the weapon's friendly acronym: "EMP gun."
Fear was alone on the bridge, his entire crew, which was small for now, was down on the planet looking for an item they required. The Cetra Resurrection floated completely invisible in space, just outside the atmosphere of the planet. His ship could pass freely between planets and space, and even through time. Wherever Fear went, his airship was never far behind. The ship would also end up being the key to his plan if all worked out as expected.
The Outcast turned from the large window that gave him a full view of everything in front of the ship and walked slowly toward the very back where the control console sat. Generally Fear had others pilot his ship, but he had learned to control the ship in case he was alone like he was now. Every function of the ship could be controlled from the single large control panel which seemed, to the untrained eye, a huge mess of levers, buttons and other gadgets necessary.
Fear hit a series of buttons and a voice came through a speaker somewhere in front of him.
"Charna," the female voice said.
"How far long are you?" asked Fear.
"Don't be so impatient," Charna replied through the communicator.
"Charna," Fear said in a voice that sounded like a warning.
"Give me five minutes and we'll have it, calm down," Charna said dismissively.
"You realize if you don't get that item…" Fear said.
Charna cut him off, "I realize that if you keep talking it will take me longer to get the said item."
"Just hurry…" Fear said.
"I know, you can't live without me," Charna replied, he was sure she was smiling but couldn't see her.
"I'd live," Fear replied.
The line was cut and Fear walked away from the control console.
He had two groups out looking for their respective items.
Conall was to retrieve Aeris' brother and the White Materia.
Charna was to retrieve the Black Materia.
In comparison he knew Conall's task was harder, and Fear knew Charna was much better than Conall. He knew the only reason he sent Charna on the easier task was because he could live with Conall dying, but not Charna, she would be a great loss. Not to the Outcasts entirely, there were others with her skill, but to him personally. He really couldn't live without her.
"Feardorcha, can you hear me?" asked a voice between crackles of interference.
Fear went back to the console and saw someone was sending him a message.
"Who is it?" asked Fear.
"This is Corta," replied the voice with a little less interference, it was easier to make out the woman's voice now.
"Do you have the White Materia?" asked Fear.
"We've run into some…problems," Corta replied.
"Like what?" asked Fear.
"Conall, Jarian and Max are dead," Corta replied.
Fear was silent for a long moment and then talked again almost in a whisper, "What?"
"All three, sir, dead," Corta said, "without our telekinetic and our commanding officer our work is going to be much slower than planned and we are facing heavy resistance from Shinra."
"You are the commanding officer now, Corta," Fear said trying to somehow save the situation. "We can retrieve the Cetra at a later date, we must have the White Materia now or all is lost, do you understand?"
"Yes, sir, I will retrieve that Materia," Corta said loyally.
"I know, now get to it, as soon as you have it get everyone out of that world," Fear said.
"Yes, sir, Corta out."
The line was cut only for Fear to receive another communication.
"Fear, I have a present for you," said the voice of his beloved Charna.
Fear smiled; suddenly Conall's devastating failure was not so pressing…this for no other reason was why he needed Charna so much.
"Is it my favourite colour?" asked Fear.
"Sorry, no, but it is your favourite shade," she replied.
"Oh, yes, of course, we both know my favourite colour is the colour of that tattoo of yours," Fear said grinning; she hated it when he mentioned the tattoo.
"Let me back on the ship so I can kill you," Charna replied.
"Maybe you'd like to tell everyone where exactly that tattoo is?" asked Fear.
"Any further and I'll float up there to kill you, I swear to…"
"Stand still, let me get a lock on you," Fear said as he used another series of buttons on the control console to get a target lock on Charna and her group, he counted them. Ten Outcasts including Charna, the exact same number Fear had sent…no losses.
He hit a final button and suddenly the group of Outcasts appeared on the bridge in front of him. The Outcasts couldn't use their Cetra abilities to teleport from land to space. This barrier was created so novice Cetra wouldn't accidentally transport themselves out into space and then, inevitably, die. It had happened before.
Standing beside Charna was the only other person he couldn't live without: his brother Garen. Fear's brother, like the bald-headed Max, was a telekinetic. Now that Max was dead Garen was the Outcasts' last telekinesis user.
Fear's brother was a bit younger than Fear himself and was a bit shorter, as far as looks they almost could have been twins but some differences set them apart. Both brothers wore identical black clothing including the coats and the same identical silver belt buckle. Garen's hair was shorter and neater than Fear's own, but it was the same jet black.
The only other thing that set them apart was their personalities, Garen, unlike his brother, was usually a very happy and easy to get along with kind of guy. Garen had saved many an Outcast from death by Fear's hand because of his ability to calm his brother down. He and Charna were the only two people who could affect how Feardorcha thought and acted; if anyone else tried such a thing he would probably kill them.
"Your girl was a bit slow today, I had to back off to let her keep up but otherwise it went alright," Garen said smiling using his ability to make the Black Materia float from Charna's hands.
She tried to grab it back but Garen floated it out of range.
"What's wrong haven't you learned to jump? Your fighting could use some work, but I think your legs work fine," Garen said laughing, "along with your other body parts as I'm sure my brother is aware, no?"
Charna glared back at him and the other nameless Outcasts chuckled with Garen.
Fear's brother let the Black Materia float back down into Charna's hands.
"I have to be nice to you because you're sleeping with my brother," Garen said patting her on the shoulder, "but if you two break up you realize you and I probably won't get along."
Charna smiled, "Not if you're dead, no."
Garen imitated her sadistic smile, "This is what you look like when you threaten people, it still doesn't work."
"Okay," Fear said, knowing the two of them always went on like this after completing a mission. In reality the two got along just fine, but they enjoyed their little quarrels like this sometimes. "One of you put the Materia in the Star Room, the rest of you go to your posts."
One nameless Outcast took the Materia from Charna and nodded to her respectfully before leaving, the others dispersed.
"So, this tattoo…" Garen began.
"Garen," Fear said waving a hand before his brother could start more trouble with Charna. "I have some bad news I'm afraid."
Garen and Charna immediately forgot about their quarrel and looked to Fear with faces of stone.
"Conall?" asked Garen.
"He's dead," Fear said.
"What the hell happened?" asked Garen.
"I don't have all the details, but Max and…"
"Feardorcha…do you read, sir? This is Conall's transport airship, do you read?" interrupted a voice from the control console.
"Hold on," Fear said irritably and answered the call. "This is Fear, what is it?"
"Sir, this is Conall's transport ship, our sensors have picked up a foreign object landing on our lower outdoor platform," the man said, "I think we're being boarded sir."
"Boarded!" growled Fear about ready to break something with all that was going wrong. "Boarded by who?"
§
Vincent Valentine stood on the lower outdoor platform of the airship. He looked around and saw the vessel was constructed similarly to the Highwind. Though he noticed it might have a few more decks than Cid's vessel, judging by the size of the ship.
It didn't matter how big it was or how many enemies fit inside, nothing was stopping Vincent from getting to the bridge.
He drew his revolver and headed for the only single door in front of him.
Suddenly, the door burst open and three men in dark clothing stepped out onto the platform. All three wielded swords varying in shape and size.
Vincent raised his gun and fired three times, one hit. The man in the middle was blown off his feet and back through the door, direct shot, square to the chest. The other two men quickly deflected the rounds and moved at Vincent with great speed.
Vincent jumped back avoiding a single vertical slice of one man's sword as the other chopped across horizontally also missing Vincent slightly.
A gold claw drove itself into the left-hand enemy's back, the man cried out in pain and Vincent used the hold he had on the man to swing him around and send him flying over the railing and off the platform.
Vincent didn't stop spinning however, and for good reason, he knew the last man was already attacking and as Vincent spun he jumped dexterously up in the air and centimeters over his enemy's horizontal slash. Vincent hit the ground and rolled to his feet, turning in a flash and firing his gun. The man had no chance of getting his sword back and took the round directly in his right side. The powerful projectile shattered rib bones and organs alike until it passed out through the other side and the man fell dead to the ground.
"Finally," Vincent muttered thinking of the Shadows, "fighting enemies I can actually kill."
He turned purposefully and entered into the ship, he saw the third man lying on the floor. His body had slid a few more feet down a hallway when he had hit the ground. The hallway was a dull grey and very nondescript, which made the big orange sign at the end of the hall even more convenient to read.
The sign read: "Elevator accessible to decks 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, deck 6 (bridge) requires certified access code."
"Access code," Vincent muttered.
He walked over to the elevator and was about to hit the call button when the doors made a chiming sound and opened to reveal two men with heavy looking rifles.
Vincent looked at the two menacing men for a moment, "Going up, or down?"
The two men looked at each other for a moment then raised their rifles and started firing full auto.
Vincent jumped back into a miraculous flip that only barely saved him from the bullets. As he landed he ran, swerving left and right, knowing doing so would only throw off the aim of the two men for a second at best. It was hard to miss with such powerful weapons.
Lucky for Vincent, escape found him.
Vincent jumped to the left in a last ditch effort to avoid the men's aim and instead of hitting a wall he instead blew through a doorway and into another room. Vincent caught himself before he fell and quickly threw the door shut and locked it from the inside.
He looked around the room and found it was a dead end.
"Secret door leading to a dead end," Vincent murmured, "this means there's another secret door."
At least he hoped that was the case, the men had started banging on the door and yelling in at him.
Vincent shot around the room knocking on the walls to see if they sounded hollow, none were. He tried some of the old tricks, pulling a book out of place to activate a door, secret levers. Nothing happened; the room remained the same old dead end. Then bullets started ripping through the door.
Vincent looked around, hoping to see some kind of ventilation system or hole he'd missed as a way out, he found nothing.
The bullets continued to tear away at the integrity of the door, soon there wouldn't be a door left to block the men out.
"Fine," Vincent growled, "I'll make my own secret door!"
Vincent spun to the only bare wall in the room and quickly emptied his revolver into it. Thankfully, the inner walls weren't heavily armoured and Vincent's bullets easily pierced through them.
The men outside stopped firing, they were forced to reload giving Vincent more time.
Vincent reloaded his own gun within a period of less than a second and started firing again until the shots became a hole in the wall big enough for him to crawl through. Vincent did so quickly and disappeared from the room.
Soon after the barrage of bullets finally brought down the door, the two men appeared in the empty room. One quickly noticed the hole in the wall and was about to warn his partner when Vincent began firing back through the hole.
Both men were blown away by Vincent's gun before either of them knew where he was attacking from. Vincent then turned and explored the new area he had entered.
Vincent was in a relatively small room with grey walls, it had no furniture like the previous room and no colour at all. The only thing the room did have was a ladder heading straight upward and another orange sign beside it which read: "Alternate deck access, ladder accessible to all decks."
"Bypass the security," Vincent said, "no wonder this place is so hard to find."
As he looked around the room he still saw no other simpler way in, he assumed ship officials carried something on them that could break the wall should they need to use the ladder in an emergency.
Vincent climbed the ladder; every new deck had an orange sign announcing which deck he had reached and a square hole in the wall big enough for someone to crawl through.
Vincent went by the deck two orange sign, deck three and four. When he reached the deck five sign he looked up and saw the deck six sign ahead.
Something else caught his eye; someone was coming out of the square crawl space of deck six and looked down at him. Out of the crawl space, in the man's hands, came a strange looking rifle type weapon Vincent had never seen before. The man pulled the trigger on the gun and a jet of flame came rushing down at Vincent.
Vincent felt the heat barely rush by him as he swung into the deck five crawl space. Vincent popped back out after a few seconds and fired back up at the man with the strange gun, his bullets missed but the man had to go back into the square hole to find cover.
Vincent knew he would never be able to get back on the ladder and climb up before the man would have his flame weapon ready again.
Vincent decided to disappear into the deck five crawl space.
He kicked open a metal cover and it clattered to the ground as Vincent rolled out of the crawl space and out on to deck five. One short of where he needed to go.
He saw the elevator and knew he would need the access code to get to deck six, he looked up and down deck five, hoping for some kind of hint as to where he should go. The sound of the elevator moving was hint enough he should get away from the elevator at least.
Vincent turned and sprinted away as the doors opened revealing four men in dark clothing, two with swords and two with the same strange weapon as the man in the deck six crawl space.
They spotted Vincent and then men with swords gave chase leaving the two men with the flame guns to guard the elevator.
Vincent looked back at the two men pursuing him, then as he looked forward he knew exactly what the solution to his situation was.
The hallway ahead turned to the left and led into yet another hallway, Vincent turned left and was out of sight for a mere few seconds before the two men turned the corner expecting to see Vincent running down the hallway.
Instead they only saw the empty hallway and where it ended.
The two stared straight ahead in confusion; they didn't notice Vincent as he landed almost unrealistically silent behind them, he had dropped from the ceiling.
Vincent simultaneously stabbed one with his gold claw and knocked the other one out cold with the butt of his revolver. He let the one he stabbed fall dead to the ground and took the unconscious one as a shield for the men with the flame guns.
Vincent appeared back in the main deck five hall and the two men with flame guns looked shocked as Vincent returned with an unconscious ally in tow. Vincent quickly awoke the sleeping enemy and put his revolver to the back of his head.
"One of you two knows the access code for deck six, you take me to deck six and I don't kill your ally," Vincent offered.
Vincent stood with his hostage about two feet from the deadly flame guns.
Both men raised their weapons and fired, obviously not so caring of their friend.
Vincent had anticipated such a move; he tossed his shield into the jet of flame and quickly threw the man's sword which he had clutched in his clawed hand. The blade spun and beheaded the man with the flame gun on the right, immediately the gun dropped to the ground. Before the second one could fire at Vincent a clawed hand grabbed the flame gun and ripped it from his grasp.
"Now," Vincent said tossing the strange gun aside and aiming his own revolver, "take me to deck six."
It seemed the man valued his life far more than he valued the life of his now very crispy ally.
Vincent kept the man at gunpoint as he entered the access code and the elevator made its way up to deck six.
"If I were you," Vincent said, "I would hope I didn't do something stupid like send this elevator somewhere other than deck six."
The man didn't respond but when the doors chimed open there was a sign saying they were on deck six.
"Thank you," Vincent said and smashed the man across the face with his gun making sure he wouldn't wake up for a while.
Vincent stepped out onto deck six.
It was a straight hallway that stopped at a large fancy looking golden door; the door that Vincent guessed led to the bridge.
He reloaded his revolver and walked toward the door. It slid apart as soon as it sensed his presence and inside he found what he was looking for, the bridge. Vincent quickly picked out the control console and the man standing at it. When Vincent was done the man who could fly the ship and he himself would be the only ones still standing.
There were about six people including the pilot on the bridge and as soon as they noticed Vincent's presence they all moved for weapons.
Two had guns at their post and began firing; the small pistols missed Vincent as he quickly ducked behind a console. He popped back up when firing stopped and aimed for a moment. Two shots, two dead bridge crew…four remained.
One of those four picked up a sword and turned to charge at Vincent only to have enough time to see his enemy stand before being blown off his feet when the bullet impacted his chest.
Three left.
Vincent walked slowly toward the pilot who scrambled around his console looking for some sort of weapon. One man ran at Vincent from the left with a blade, yelling all the way, Vincent casually aimed his revolver and stopped the charge in its tracks. Vincent hadn't fired yet, but the man froze.
Vincent looked into the man's wide eyes, "You probably shouldn't have stopped."
With that bit of advice given Vincent fired his gun, the direct hit to the head sent the dead man over a console and landed with a thud on the other side.
The final enemy he could kill popped up with a pistol in hand and fired a single shot, Vincent brought up his clawed hand and the bullet ricocheted off the golden armoured arm.
In response Vincent raised his gun and fired, killing the second last of the bridge crew and turning toward the pilot.
The pilot had finally found a weapon; he attempted a charge at Vincent with a steel pipe the man had picked up.
Vincent effortlessly aimed and blew the pipe right out of the pilot's hand causing the man to trip and fall to the ground.
Vincent stepped toward the pilot while reloading his revolver.
"You fly this thing where I want," Vincent told him, "and you can have it once I'm off."
No one ever ran faster to a destination.
Within minutes Vincent had directed the pilot to pick up his two friends and then Vincent made sure their trip to the bridge was secure.
Professor Gast, Lucrecia and Vincent stood on the bridge of the airship.
"Well, I must say," Gast said looking around, "you're not too bad at this hostile takeover stuff are you?"
Vincent shrugged.
"Take us into Midgar, get us as close to Shinra Headquarters as possible," Vincent said after explaining quickly to the clueless pilot what exactly Headquarters looked like.
"That was pretty good," Lucrecia said standing beside Vincent.
Vincent looked to her.
"Clearing the ship and getting us on, all heroic and stuff," Lucrecia explained, "that was pretty good."
"Thank you," Vincent replied.
Vincent appeared indifferent, but for once he knew what it felt like to be flattered.
"Vincent look!" Gast said urgently.
Around the entrance to Shinra Headquarters stood at least twelve similar black clad men and women.
"We have to fight through all of them?" asked Lucrecia incredulously. "I can use a gun but I'm a scientist not a warrior."
"Well, we do have to get in," Gast said.
Vincent nodded, "I have another idea."
"Uh oh," muttered Lucrecia.
"Where's the labs?" asked Vincent.
Gast pointed to the general area of Headquarters where the laboratories were.
"You see where he's pointing?" asked Vincent to the pilot who nodded that he did.
"Good," Vincent said, "that's where I want you to ram the airship into."
"Ram Headquarters?" asked Gast wide-eyed.
"Yes," Vincent said deadpan.
Vincent looked at the pilot, "Full speed, I want the majority of this vessel inside that building."